PSI - Issue 59

Bernadett Spisák et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 59 (2024) 3–10 B. Spisa ´ k et al. / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2019) 000 – 000

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1. Introduction Stress corrosion cracking (SCC) is an important problem which occurs in many industries. These include the aerospace, gas, oil, marine and nuclear industry. One of the most researched areas is the occurrence of this type of failure mechanism in the nuclear sector. The corrosion damage processes and their economic consequences are widely discussed in the literature. This can be seen in the evolution of the number of books, journals, publications and internet databases on the subject. Among corrosion damage, the information related to the phenomenon of stress corrosion cracking, its quantity and its trends over time for the period 2010-2021 was examined in order to highlight the topicality of the subject. For this purpose, three reputable journals dealing with corrosion failures were selected:  Corrosion The Journal of Science and Engineering (ISSN 00109312, 1938159X),  Corrosion Science (ISSN 0010938X),  Corrosion Engineering Science and Technology (ISSN 1478422X). The three keywords/terms used in the search were ”corrosion”, ”stress corrosion crack” and ”SCC”. Figure 1 (a) shows the change in the number of articles published on corrosion and stress corrosion using the given search terms. In recent years, the topic of stress corrosion cracking has accounted for more than 30% of the corrosion related articles which appeared in the three journals named above and shows an increasing tendency. By searching for the abbreviation SCC, articles on stress corrosion cracking in corrosion journals can be more effectively screened out. It can be seen that about 10% of corrosion articles deal with this topic. These results show that the complexity of the topic, its long incubation time and the rapid propagation of cracking make it an area still under research.

Fig. 1. Number of articles published in the field of corrosion and stress corrosion cracking.

Stress corrosion cracking typically has a long incubation period and once it reaches the propagation stage, can suddenly cause structural failure. In addition, its occurrence requires the presence of three conditions, namely a suitable environment, mechanical loading and the susceptibility of the material to stress corrosion cracking. It should be noted here that a material susceptible to stress corrosion cracking will not initiate cracking in all environments, making their investigation complex and time-consuming. In order to determine the crack propagation as a function of the stress intensity factor (SIF) for a given material, stress corrosion tests have to be performed at operating temperature and pressure for the medium used in the chosen nuclear power plant.